


I'm not breaking, I won't take it

by queenalinastarkov



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Faberry, I will kill Russell Fabray with my own bare hands, Minor Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez, Not Beta Read, Quinn Fabray & Mercedes Jones Friendship, Quinn Fabray & Santana Lopez Friendship, Quinn Fabray Needs a Hug, Quinn Fabray-centric, don't let the summary fool you this is faberry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29225301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenalinastarkov/pseuds/queenalinastarkov
Summary: Santana gets up and starts toward her, “Jesus, what happened to you?” she mumbles, but she's softer than she was moment before. It's obvious that she’s concerned.Quinn chokes down a sob and then admits, “There’s something wrong with me.”“Hey, listen. Whatever it is, you’re going to be fine."Santana is still not getting it, but she’s rubbing soothing little circles on Quinn’s shoulders. There really must be something wrong with her too, because then Quinn is lunging forward and then she’s kissing Santana. Quinn feels her freeze, but then Santana relaxes and she’s kissing her back.or,a study in quinn fabray.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	1. year i

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all. Idk what I'm doing writing a glee fic in 2021, but here we are. I couldn't stop thinking about how Ry** M***** did Quinn so dirty, so this is what came out of it.
> 
> This is mostly unedited + unbeta-ed, so if you see any grammar mistakes...look away. 
> 
> Also the chapters are going to go by years, but year i is quinn's sophomore year, just to clear that up. 
> 
> Anyway, lets get going.

The first time she realizes she wants to kiss Rachel Berry, she’s fourteen. 

They’re lab partners in science class and for the most part it's a miserable experience. It isn’t exactly fun having to cordially interact with someone you order slushied on the daily (it’s these moments she finds Lucy surfacing, ever-guilty). Berry never seems to shut the fuck up either, no matter how rude Quinn is in response. 

Rachel is awfully quiet today. She’d taken the handout Quinn passed to her with a soft thank you and hasn’t said anything since. She doesn’t mean to stare, but that’s what she ends up doing. It's just—so bizarre. Rachel is one of the loudest, most outspoken people she knows. Something must be wrong, she decides. 

Quinn should just be enjoying the silence, but before she can stop herself, the words are tumbling out of her mouth.

“Rachel?”

The other girl’s head shoots up, her eyes meeting Quinn’s. She doesn’t say anything, just sits there, a surprised look on her face. This goes on so long that Quinn can’t help but speak again, if only to end the awkwardness.

“Are you, like, okay?” she manages.

Rachel smiles then—a real one—all teeth, and then observes, “You called me Rachel.”

Quinn feels herself flush, realizing her error. Scrambling for words, she settles on, “Well, it's your name right?"

Rachel just laughs, biting her lip and keeping her eyes locked on Quinn. 

Fuck, she thinks. Fuck. Rachel Berry is abnormally pretty when she laughs and she is looking right into Quinn's eyes and suddenly she is noticing how warm Berry’s brown eyes are and some deranged part of her thinks that she would do anything to hear her laugh again. 

* * *

Quinn is handling it. Which is to say, she doubles the amount of slushies Berry has to deal with and starts drawing pornographic pictures of her in the bathrooms. So—not handling it at all. Everytime she sees Rachel she feels like she’s on fire. 

Her father is having a rough week and he’s being especially...difficult to deal with. She’s upset—so, so frustrated and she can’t stop seeing Berry’s stupid little argyle sweaters and pencil skirts everywhere, can’t stop thinking of her as soon as she slips into her bed at night. So, she lets herself get a little too drunk and then she’s in Puck’s bed and he keeps pressing another drink in her hand and she knows what he expects, but she—

“Yes, you can. Just have another,” he reassures her. 

She doesn’t say yes, but she doesn’t say no either, just asks him if he has a condom, and he tells her he does, but she’s too drunk and too inexperienced to even know the difference (she’s stupid, so, so stupid, she’ll think later) and then he’s looming above her, sweating and grunting and it hurts, and she thinks. This is what the fuss is about? And then it's over and she feels like her skin is on fire and she needs to just get away. She finds her clothes and is hurriedly shoving things into her bag, and then she’s gone. 

* * *

As if it can’t get any worse, Finn joins glee and Rachel is trying to steal her boyfriend and every time she sees them together looking all smiley she feels like shoving a knife through Finn’s eyes. Whether it's because she doesn’t appreciate him looking at Rachel like that or vice versa, she doesn’t really know, but, either way she’s pissed.

She takes the test three times. The little pink plus sign is still there, staring up at her, mocking. God must hate her, she thinks. He has to. She had sex one time and Puck told her that he had a condom, but obviously not because there’s a baby inside her and—

“Oi, is anybody in there?” she hears from the other side of the door. She couldn’t risk taking the test at home, so she’s sitting on the floor of a disgusting McDonald's bathroom and—

“HEY,” she hears again from the other side of the door. 

“Jesus fucking christ,” Quinn mutters, wiping at her face. She wraps all three tests in toilet paper and shoves them into the bin, washes her hands, and bursts out of the door. It's an employee on the other side of the door and she manages a soft sorry. He blinks twice and then asks, “Hey, are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer, just pushes past him, rushing to her car. 

* * *

Things fall apart quickly. She tells Finn the baby is his, makes up some ridiculous story about a hot tub, but Puck won’t stop staring at her and she can’t stop staring at Rachel. And then poor, naive Finn tells her father. She’d seen his eyes flash and had thought, it's over. He’s going to kill me. But his eyes lock on Finn and Russel Fabray just clenches his jaw and tells her,

“You have twenty minutes. Pack your things and get out.”

She’s drowning, she thinks. She has to be. Quinn almost begs her father, but she sees the determined set of his jaw and knows he will never change his mind. 

“Mom,” she manages. “Please.”

Judy won’t look at her, just takes a step back, swallows hard and then—

“You heard your father,” her mother whispers, voice trembling.

“You’re a coward,” she hisses, but there’s no bite to it; her voice cracks and she can barely manage a whisper. Her mother still refuses to meet her eyes and whatever is left of her heart shatters in her chest. 

* * *

She stays with Finn, so she has a place to sleep at night, but Quinn knows his mother doesn’t like or trust her. She loses her uniform and suddenly she’s on the other side of slushies and God, she’s pregnant. She feels huge and sad and angry all of the time, but somehow she still can’t stop staring at Rachel Berry. 

Quinn admits, “I would have tortured you if the roles were reversed, you know.”

Rachel just smiles sadly, and tells her she knows. There’s an I’m sorry on the tip of her tongue, but she knows she can’t bring herself to say it. 

She strikes up a tentative friendship with Mercedes and it's nice. She’s never had this kind of friendship before—certainly not as Lucy. Quinn maybe could have had this with Santana, but she knows they were—are—too competitive for that. And Brittany—well, Brittany has always been Santana’s. 

She finds some semblance of peace. She sings in glee and reaches some sort of understanding with Rachel and Mercedes is her friend, but it doesn’t last. Finn finds out the truth and he’s screaming and kicking chairs and he has a right to be angry, but she can’t help but flinch.

Rachel comes to find her. She is rambling, apologizing and saying she would understand if Quinn wanted to hit her, but Quinn can’t really hear her over the blood rushing in her ears. =

“I’m not mad at you,” she whispers. “All you did was what I wasn’t brave enough to do: tell the truth.”

Rachel slips onto the bench, close enough that their legs are almost touching and Quinn aches and burns and wants, only just managing to tell Rachel that she wants to be alone. 

* * *

One moment she is on stage, and the next, her water is breaking and her mom is there and everything is happening so, so quickly. She manages to scream that she wants Mercedes and then someone is telling her to breathe, that she’s going to be okay, and then to push, but she doesn’t feel okay. Her body feels like it's splitting in half and she thinks if it didn’t hurt so much, she would laugh, because it is. 

As suddenly as it started, it's over and she hears the sound of a baby crying. She doesn’t have the strength to say a word but she manages to reach up and then, her daughter is in her arms.

Oh, she thinks. Oh. 

She’s crying and laughing at the same time because Beth is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. She rocks her gently and then she hums the lullaby her sister used to sing to her to sleep when they were younger.

“Hey,” she says to her daughter. “Hey, it's okay. Shhh, shh.”

Beth quiets, falls asleep and Quinn is left alone with a tsunami of emotions she is far from prepared for. She already made her decision, but this is going to kill me, she thinks. 

Then, the doctors are taking her from Quinn, to run checks and clean her off and she wants to scream, wants to hold her and never let her go, but Mercedes grabs her hand and squeezes it and she forces her body to relax. 

I am not going to survive this, she thinks. Because she knows that no matter how much she loves her—and she does, she knows that she will never love anything or anyone as much as she loves Beth—she won’t be able to give her the kind of life she deserves. She deserves everything and Quinn is too fucked up to even take care of herself. 

When Shelby shows up at the hospital, all she can see is Rachel. If this is the woman that created Rachel, she can trust her with her daughter, she decides. She can’t bring herself to think about what that means, but she does end up being right. Giving up Beth—it does almost kill her. 

When Judy asks her to come home, Quinn just sighs and says, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”


	2. year i: interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry about the wait, college has been kicking my ass recently. Again, its unedited and unbeta-ed so go easy on me lol.

They release her after the traditional 24 hours. She rides home with her mom and it is as painfully awkward as she thought it would be, Judy filling the air with meaningless gossip that Quinn tunes out.

“That Mercedes girl and her family are very nice. They packed up all your things and brought it back up to your room” her mother notes.

God, she doesn’t want to start a fight on the first night she’s allowed back into her home, but even the mention of Mercedes makes her want to yell. You should have been there for me, she thinks. Maybe if you were, I’d still have--

She doesn’t herself spiral because there is really nothing to be done. As soon as her mother pulls into the driveway, Quinn feels like she’s standing in a graveyard. God, every corner of the house is a monument to her suffering and loss and she absolutely can’t handle that right now--not after Beth. 

She doesn’t have a choice though, so she gets out of the car all the same and heads up to her room. 

It's strange--being back home. It feels wrong, if she’s being honest. She can’t sit in her dining room without thinking about dinner that night, can’t walk up the steps to the front door without picturing two boxes full of her stuff and that note telling her not to come back. She sees her father everywhere, in the scotch that’s still in the cabinet and the jacket he left hanging in the closet. 

Her mother is as helpful as she ever was. She makes sure there’s takeout and pays the bills with Russell’s money. Judy Fabray is never home and when she is, she’s wine-drunk and inconsolable. Quinn is not disappointed exactly. At least, that is what she tells herself. When she agreed to move back in, she naively hoped that her mother would get better now that Russell was gone. It was idiotic of her and she knows that. Judy never cared enough to protect her daughters from Russell’s rage when they were growing up. All she did was flutter around and repeat his name over and over again, while Quinn or Frannie or both cried, like that was enough of an admonishment. Why would anything change? She hates herself for expecting anything more of her mother. It’s not that bad, she tells herself, and it's not, but she is just so unbearably lonely. 

It's enough to make her wish that she never left Mercedes’ house. She misses them. She misses the way Mrs. Jones would ask her about her day and fill up her plate because she worried after Quinn’s weight. She misses how Mr. Jones always had a new stupid Dad joke, how he noticed things about her--when she was heaving a bad day, when she felt sick or tired. They all did. Most of all, she misses having Mercedes a room down from her. They’re still friends, but it's not the same. Not really. 

They told her at the hospital that she didn’t have to go back home, that they’d be happy to have her indefinitely. It had made her tear up, but she couldn’t stay. She knew that she was a burden, an interloper in their home. She couldn’t overstay her welcome and now she’s back in this godforsaken house and she can’t even complain really, because at least she has a fucking home. 

Despite all this, Quinn cannot stop thinking about the fact that Rachel didn’t visit her in the hospital. She tries not to feel irrationally hurt because Quinn knows she isn’t owed anything--especially not from Rachel--but she really can’t help it because everyone else visited. She’s only been home three days when a faint knock on her door reveals a shivering Rachel Berry standing on her porch. 

Her hands are toying with the torn threads on her sweater and Quinn manages a soft, “Rachel?”

“Hello, Quinn.” Rachel says, smiling, unsure. “I know perhaps I’m not a person you really want to be seeing right now, but it didn’t feel right...my not seeing you at the hospital, I mean.”

And she’s so fucked; she knows this—has known this for months now, but Rachel is smiling at her, all teeth, and she just can’t help herself. Quinn swallows the lump in her throat, telling Rachel to come in before she can think to stop herself. 

Rachel Berry looks out of place in the Fabray living room. She’s not surprised, really. Her house is cold, all sharp lines; nothing is out of place. She can’t imagine Berry fitting in a place like this.

“Do you want something to drink?” she manages, the homemaker-in-training her mother raised her to be waking up.

“No—I just wanted to stop by and let you know I was thinking of you,” there’s a pause and Rachel admits, “I saw pictures of her. Of Beth.”

She flinches; she can’t help it. She can barely think her name, but here Rachel is saying it out loud.

“She’s beautiful,” Rachel whispers. “She looks so much like you and I don’t know what you must be feeling right now, but you made a selfless decision, Quinn.”

She needs Rachel to stop. Just stop saying all these nice things and stop saying her daughters name and looking at her like that because she thinks she’s going to something stupid like slap her or kiss her and—

Rachel reaches and suddenly, her hand slips into Quinn’s and her hands are soft. Not like Finn’s or Puck’s and she burns where their skin touches. Rachel squeezes once and then she murmurs so softly, “I just wanted you to know that I’m here if you need anything.”

Her hand is suddenly empty and she mourns the loss. Her first instinct is to push and fight, to press all of Rachel’s buttons and hit her where it hurts because she cannot handle the way Rachel is looking at her right now, the way her hand felt in hers. But she kills her baser instincts and manages a small, sad, smile and, “Thank you, Rachel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all. Please review! Constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
